THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY variations dictated by a food’s texture and flavor, but Prosatio Silban was determined to find a new one. It was sultry in the beefy cook’s galleywagon, but not from the season. In point of fact,…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Hiding in Plain Sight
THE BEST YOUTHFUL HANGOUTS MAKE deep, lifelong memories — especially after they’re gone. Among our local, accessible, destinations in the late 1970s/early 1980s were those we called “The Bin,” “The Corridors,” “The Nuclear Plant” and “The Structure.” (Another, “The Twilight…
Prosatio Silban and the Sick Call
SOMETIMES, EVEN THE IDEA OF rolling out of bed is too painful for words. Prosatio Silban was sick. He wasn’t quite sure with what, but the symptoms were plain: congested head and chest, sore throat, joint- and head-ache, cough, chills,…
5 Thoughts: The Grand Old Process
1. THERE IS A CERTAIN COMPULSION to the act of writing: an unscratchable itch that won’t let the fingers refrain from their fruitless but busy task, whether on paper or keyboard. 2. To ask writers “Why do you write?” is…
Prosatio Silban and the TED Talk
IT WAS A GREAT HONOR to speak before a throng of one’s peers at epicurean Pormaris’ Archive of Gastronomic Artifice – but it was also not without its terrors. Prosatio Silban made a point of perusing the Archive at least…
The Torah Guides’ Torah Guides
THE TORAH CAN BE A great read — inspiring, comforting, uplifting, provocative — but without the explanatory input of generations of commentators, it can also be a bit daunting. Fortunately, Jewish tradition has portioned this essential text into weekly bites…
AND SO, EARTH CONTINUED TO shake off the irritants that had plagued her since the rise of the Industrial Age…”
— Barbatus the Elder
Prosatio Silban and the Affable Invitation
AS A COOK-ERRANT, PROSATIO SILBAN perhaps knew better than anyone the importance of first impressions. “What a charming turn of phrase!” exclaimed the elegant middle-aged woman sitting down at the beefy cook’s table-and-chairs in the afternoon shade of his galleywagon.…
On Writerly Spirituality: Yom Kippur Edition
THIS DAY IS STEEPED IN regret — and resolve. Yom Kippur is not as joyful as Pesach or Shavuot, which respectively mark the exodus from Egypt and embrace of the Torah[1], but it’s a day which carries its own spiritual…
Child’s Play (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
THERE IS A MOMENT IN AN out-of-control situation when its utter wrongness becomes agonizingly apparent – and it’s the same moment that the experiencer realizes there’s not a damn thing to be done about it. Such were Prosatio Silban’s thoughts…
Disposathon!
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE: IT IS easier to get rid of everything in one big purge than a few things in a bunch of smaller ones. The time: June 1985. Hopped-up on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and The Dharma Bums,…
I AM A FANTASY WRITER; that is to say, I fantasize about people reading my writings.”
–Your author, in a truth-pensive mood